Memories: Clean Slate
by januaryfreeze92
Summary: Last installment of the Memories series. Claire finally answers Sylar/Gabriel's questions. Sylaire.


**A/N: Hey all. The last instalment into the Memories series. There may be more of the Memories series coming out, but this will be the one that ends the series.... this is the fic that actually inspired the series, the rest of the series the memories that flashes through Sylar's head as he is seemingly dying. I may decide to write another series following Memories, though.**

**Thanks for the support and the waiting!**

Memories: Clean Slate

She ran through the rain, her dripping wet hair swaying erratically around her head. "Sylar!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, quickly scanning the horizon for any sort of movement. Claire knew they were supposed to just be a fling - meaningless nights of passion, followed by days of hatred. She would would loath him every day - verbally abusing him in ways that ashamed her - but by night she would worship him as if he were a God. Now all of the times she scorned him, insulted him, and sent him away played before her mind, causing an immense guilt to weigh her down. She was already worried - a major understatement. Her heart was beating in her throat and the feeling was one suffocation. It seemed the only way for her to breathe easier again was to find him - he was her oxygen, absolutely necessary for human life. She would have never admitted this at any other time, but now was not the time for denial.

Claire didn't know what came over her, making him so important to her that she was surely risking her life by coming after him - Hell, she was certainly risking her home, her family... Everything. But she didn't want to think about that now - she had to find him. After a while everything became about him. When she was spewing words of hatred about him aloud, her mind was praising him, thinking things that would make a whore blush. Of course, she thought her thoughts were perfectly safe - why would he spend time reading her thoughts, anyway?

A low moan caught her attention, as did some movement in the downpour.

"Sylar!" she screamed again, finally catching sight of him in the distance and running as fast as her legs could carry her to his side. Dropping to her knees she placed her hands on his cheeks.

"Don't you dare forget me," she pleaded him, her heart rate speeding when his eyes wouldn't open.

"I won't," he managed, his fists gripping at the ground as if holding on for dear life. His face was contorted in pain, his eyes forced shut as memories sped through his mind - the way her hair would fan out behind her head like a halo, the smell of her sheets after she left for school, the feel of her skin after a hot shower...

Sylar reached up to take her hand in his. She realized vaguely that his nails were digging into her skin, but she couldn't feel it. Even if she did, she wouldn't have cared in the slightest - she would have been numb even without her power-malfunction.

"You better not," she told him, almost soothing him with the lull in her voice. She stroked his face, tears streaming down her cheeks - mingling with the rain that was already their.

She realized something was wrong - his heart beat was slowing ever so slightly over time. Some sort of whimper came from her throat, and she pulled his head in her lap, cradling her body to keep him warm. He must have already known, or at least suspected, this because his eyes opened, it's brown depths flashing with fear. His hands weakened on hers and his eyes closed once more.

"You're supposed to understand things! You can't even understand how to use your powers in a time of need?!" she screamed, hot tears streaming down her face.

More memories flashed before his eyes - Claire and him attached at the mouth and hips, her sandwiched between him and the kitchen counter, her eyes changing in the sunlight from blue to green...

When she didn't answer him she lowered her face to his, whispering meaningless words into his ears.

"Why is there evil in the world?" she recalled quietly. For some crazy reason she felt the need to answer his questions, probably one of the only things she will ever be able to do for him.

"It's here because we are. There's a little evil in each of us - planted there to challenge us and see if we will overcome it or be overcome," Claire told him softly, her hand reaching up to trace the contour of his jaw. She remembered all the times she had called him a monster, a thing of pure evil. "You are not overcome," she whispered to him, rocking him back and forth in her arms, as a mother would a child.

Memories flashed through his mind's eye like lightning, but he would not be overcome - if only for her, he wouldn't. His life was unimportant to him, to the rest of the world, for that matter - but he would make her proud, as he had never made anyone else.

"How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" she asked no one in particular. She thought about this for a moment. She didn't shiver in the cold, only worried about him making it through this. "I only know one angel. Gabriel, the left hand of God. Think how blessed I must be to have him in my arms right now, and I never even realized..." she trailed off, trying to subdue her heartbreak over her dying moments.

"Well, I don't know if you could dance on a pin head. But I don't doubt it, although I'd prefer you didn't try any odd forms of acupuncture while I'm not around... So let's say one," she said, a small smile gracing her lips for a short moment.

He wanted to object somehow, but found he couldn't move. His arms were now limp at his sides and he wanted to cry out somehow.

'Oh, Claire. You were never mine, were you?' he thought, sincere feelings of agony harming him. He didn't know if it were from the injuries her father and the haitian inflicted, or the feeling of turmoil of not being able to see her face one last time.

"How do we make love stay?" Claire asked in a hushed tone, closing her eyes in regret for a moment and pressing her forehead to his. His skin was cold as death, she realized, and that shook her to the core. "We try at it, Gabriel, with every fiber of our being. Everyday of our lives. Like everything else worth having, in needs hard work," she cried. Something deep inside him clicked when she called him this - she had always refused to call him Gabriel, for reasons unbeknownst to him. It was if she was finally accepting him, as if he was finally good enough in some odd way.

"Love is so hard, Gabriel, but we push through. Life is so hard, but we keep living it... Is there really a difference between the two?" she asked him, almost forgetting he couldn't answer.

"Forgive me," she whispered to him, the wind whipping at her face, causing her eyes to sting.

"Life is living for yourself, love is living for another. Love makes your own life... pale in comparison to that of the one you love," he whispered to her weakly, reaching up to caress her cheek. He wouldn't have admitted it to anyone, but he knew he was weeping. He was suddenly grateful for the rain that coated his face, hiding the emotions that played out behind his eyes.

Claire looked at him as if he were a ghost, touching him with gentle caresses as if he were made of china.

"Claire?"

"Yes?"

"I'm not dead," he whispered to the both of them, needing to hear it to believe it for some strange reason. The brush with death was much to close for comfort to him

"Uh, why _aren't_ you dead? How the hell do you still remember me?" she asked him, wonder and puzzlement filling her eyes.

He shrugged sheepishly, his heartrate returning to normal.

"Uh, my powers kicked in to survival mode? How the hell am I supposed to know?"

She rolled her eyes, standing up. "Jerk-off - you enjoyed that, didn't you?" she demanded, her original tears of grief now mixing with tears of hurt, "I knew this was going to happen!"

She started to walk back down the hill. She always knew this was a mistake, that he was using her, wanting to hurt her, manipulate her.

"The fact that I'm not dead - pretty much, yeah," he said, chasing after her, "Where are you going?"

"Home, away from you, I don't know."

He reached after her, pulling her back to him with his mind. "Why would I want to hurt you like this?" he asked, reaching up to stop a tear from its path down her cool cheek. She stopped, taking in a long breath, thinking for the first time that she longed to be numb again - she didn't want the hurt and disappointment weighing her down like this, suffocating her. "I told you - my life pales in comparison to yours, but I guess I'm too selfish to die just yet."

The corner of Claire's mouth lifted and he brushed his fingers through her dripping hair, pushing it out of her face before pressing his lips to hers.

Nothing had ever felt better.


End file.
